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Parent Teacher Night
Plot Summary After another day at the Earth Skool, Ms. Bitters reminds the children that it's Parent-Teacher Night, and that all the parents must come to the Skool at the end of the day. Zim is confronted with a dilemma: He doesn't have any parents (Irkens are cloned from a gene bank and have all their information given to them in PAKs by the Control Brains). Zim becomes worried because his robotic parents aren’t programmed for such a task yet, and he cannot permit them to blow his cover. He attempts to help them become the parents they should be, but GIR's carefree nature puts his plans in jeopardy. At the meeting in the cafeteria, Dib, who brings his dad's communication device, tries to prove that Zim is an alien. The robotic parents malfunction and wreak havoc during the meeting, but nobody, besides Dib, notices they aren't human, or that Zim is an alien, due to the show's characters' stupidity. So, Zim's plan to fool everybody (except Dib) actually worked, despite GIR's interference. In the end, Zim and the Roboparents fly off while Dib gets in trouble for throwing punch on the floor in frustration. Facts of Doom Cultural References *In this episode, Zim says "You lie! YOU LIE!" This is a reference to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. When Nny first meets Squee, he says exactly the same thing. Trivia of Doom *This is the first and so far only time we have seen Zim's roboparents out of the house. *Ms. Bitters is revealed to have a security camera in her classroom. However, it disappears in later episodes. *The title is the first to use the squiggly Invader ZIM font instead of the original. *The parent teacher night happened in the afternoon, but at the very end when Ms. Bitters is mad at Dib and the whole room turns red, there is a clock in the background that says "12:16". *Like The Nightmare Begins, this episode was originally rated TV-Y but was later changed to TV-Y7-FV. *This is the only time Zim is shown as a smeet. He would've been shown again in a flashback as a smeet in the cancelled episode, The Trial with the same first part of the flashback, but longer containing another smeet Zim had deformed after exiting the chute. *Smeet Zim was voiced by Melissa Fahn. *This episode shows that GIR knows how to successfully put on makeup. Things You Might Have Missed *When Zim turns on the video to teach his Roboparents normal human behaviour, a child in one of the videos looks very similar to Timmy from The Fairly OddParents! *List of old-fashioned cartoons broadcasted in the base: **Clay animated show **Hunter's dog **Heckle and Jeckle's first cartoon **Dancing scarecrow **Beaver eating corn **Cat licking the stripy candy poles *When the robot parents were looking at the TV system, you can see a classic Tom & Jerry Christmas episode that came out in the 1940s. *When Dib throws the punch at Zim, it doesn't burn him like it does in The Wettening. *The man in the parenting video looks like Old Kid. Changes and Cuts *The scene where Zim tries to reprogram his Roboparents was supposed to have GIR change the channel while Zim was out to inappropriate 40's movies with smoking, guns, and such. As it was too inappropriate, Nickelodeon forced it to be changed. *The word "diarrhea" was supposed to be in brown, but was later changed to dark red. Inconsistencies and Animation Errors *Ms. Bitters' dress changes from purple to black sporadically throughout the episode and early episodes. *As GIR is running after the Makeup Lady, he doesn't run all the way out of frame. He disappears a few milliseconds before he goes out of the frame. *When GIR falls from the ceiling with make-up on, in one frame his tongue is orange. Music *Skool's Out *Makeup Lady *TV Lair *Spine Break SRC *Family Programming *Parents Arrive *Parents Crack See also *Parent Teacher Night (Transcript) *Episode 03 Credits *Parent Teacher Night Screenshots Category:Season 1 Category:Zim Filmography Category:Dib Filmography Category:Gaz Filmography Category:Professor Membrane Filmography Category:GIR Filmography Category:Ms. Bitters Filmography Category:Episodes Category:Altered Episodes